Maybe primary suspect nicking article (7)
I believe the answer is:
feather
'maybe primary' is the definition.
(I know that primary feather is a type of flight feather)
'suspect nicking article' is the wordplay.
'suspect' becomes 'fear' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'nicking' means one lot of letters goes inside another (I've seen this in other clues).
'article' becomes 'the' (the definite article in English).
'fear' enclosing 'the' is 'FEATHER'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for feather that I've seen before include "trifling thing" , "Part of a bird's plumage" , "A white one denotes cowardice" , "Rotate (propeller) blades (to reduce thrust)" , "Free hat (anag)" .)